Brava Presents
A Theatrical Homecoming: Rhodessa Jones Returns to the Stage, “Just Outside of Babylon, There Is a Rude Paradise”
June 12-13, 2026
Fri-Sat @ 7pm
Brava Mainstage
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Legendary San Francisco artist, activist, and storyteller Rhodessa Jones — creator and director of The MEDEA Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women — returns to the stage this summer with “Just Outside of Babylon, There Is a Rude Paradise: A Celebration of Love and a Love Letter to San Francisco.” The intimate, two-night engagement will be performed Friday, June 12, and on Saturday, June 13, 2026, featuring Rhodessa’s award-winning Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women/HIV Circle. Both shows will be at 7:00 PM at BRAVA Theater Center, 2781 24th Street, in the heart of the Mission District.
Presented by Rhodessa Jones Productions with sponsorship and theatrical partnership from BRAVA! For Women in the Arts, the evening is an offering of remembrance, storytelling, and a moment with one of the city’s most singular voices. For an artist whose life’s work has been devoted to lifting the stories of the unheard, “Just Outside of Babylon” is both reflection and reckoning — a love letter to the San Francisco that shaped her, and to the people, places, and movements that kept her making art inside jails, on streets, in living rooms, and on the world’s great stages for nearly four decades.
For longtime followers of Rhodessa’s work, this engagement marks an especially meaningful moment: it is expected to be her final press-promoted theatrical presentation for some time. Audiences are invited to attend a live interview with Johanna Haigood, a well-known aerialist and choreographer in San Francisco, California.
The Rhodessa Festival is funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission's Legacy Artists Grant and Artist Impact Endowment, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Fleishhacker Foundation and Brava! for Women in the Arts.
ABOUT rhodessa jones’ medea project
The Medea Project
The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women is produced by Rhodessa Jones Productions. The Medea Project develops original productions that demonstrate their vision of "Arts as Social Activism".
In 1989, on the basis of material developed while conducting classes at the San Francisco County Jail, Rhodessa Jones created "Big Butt Girls, Hard Headed Women", a performance piece based on the lives of the incarcerated women she encountered. During the work's creation, Jones and jail officials were made aware of issues that were specific to female inmates, such as guilt, depression, and self-loathing, which arose in response to feelings of failure in the face of community. These issues directly contribute to recidivism among female offenders.
Based on this observation, Jones founded The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women to explore whether an arts-based approach could help reduce the numbers of women returning to jail. In 2008, The Medea Project joined forces with UCSF's Women's HIV Clinic to become The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women / HIV Circle with the intent to use theatre to explore what it means to be living with the virus in the 21st century. For the past 15 years, The Medea Project has performed shows all around the United States, sharing the truth and the stories of what it means to be female and infected or affected.